I think it's also the consumer culture here in the US, we have the best consumer culture in the world in that people will buy almost anything given little reason to, when compared to other countries.Not all countries celebrate Christmas and thanksgiving the way america does where by the buy gifts for themselves and other people for christmas...and they have to get something which drives sales of useless things too.
People here eat out alot too, people goign out whole families at a time even to fast food joints, to celebrate anything from anniversaries to birthday parties really helps restaurants, and once customers are out of the house , it makes it more likely they will go shopping at other places along the way.They could just stay home and cook, or invite friends over instead, but they instead go out alot.

There are several examples,but my conculsuion is that america has one of the best customers in the world.

From my experience, especially given my own country, the amount of consumerism is related only somewhat to the overall mentality and far more to do with the surplus. If people have the money to spend, and no specific views preventing them from doing so, they will spend to their hearts content. You need only look at history and things such as Rome to know that people will be greedy spenders outside of things such as the influence of advertising in the media.

“A fool is not a person who does not know something. Rather, a fool is a person who is given information but who chooses to ignore what he is given based on how he wants things to be, rather than how things are."

i can tell you for an absolute fact that this is not accurate. a couple of weeks ago my cousin was hit by a hit-and-run driver in new orleans. the cops didnt bother to try to find the driver. the hospitals refused to treat him because he had no insurance. they actually released him, his dad had to drive down from tennessee to get him. the injury? his thigh was laid open almost to the bone from about 3 inches from his pelvis to about 2 inches from his knee

But reality is so unfun for the far right in the USA. They think everyone just gets all the care they need in the ER and that everyone can afford it as well.

check those clinton years and you will see SURPLUS written on the last few of them You will if you also looked hard find that Obama is the most fiscal conservative president in the history of the country ( not a good thing since we could use more stimulus for sure to get out of the rut we are in from the GOP)

IDK when you're only providing assistance in so far as it keeps your people intact I can see the argument that you're being neutral to the best of your ability.

And Switzerland going so far as to shoot down both Allied and Axis aircraft for violations of their airspace isn't neutrality? Is there any evidence the Swiss purchased gold from Germany knowing some of it was taken from the Jews?

check those clinton years and you will see SURPLUS written on the last few of them You will if you also looked hard find that Obama is the most fiscal conservative president in the history of the country ( not a good thing since we could use more stimulus for sure to get out of the rut we are in from the GOP)

Yeah, a surplus on paper, but the debt kept rising. That's not a surplus.

He got close and there would have been a surplus within another year or two if his policies were continued, but it wasn't there yet.

check those clinton years and you will see SURPLUS written on the last few of them You will if you also looked hard find that Obama is the most fiscal conservative president in the history of the country ( not a good thing since we could use more stimulus for sure to get out of the rut we are in from the GOP)

The accusation works both ways. Attacking the messenger instead of the message is typical of personal projection.

And Switzerland going so far as to shoot down both Allied and Axis aircraft for violations of their airspace isn't neutrality? Is there any evidence the Swiss purchased gold from Germany knowing some of it was taken from the Jews?

The Swiss benefit from some pretty unique geographical advantages that make them an unappealing target. Its great they were able to maintain the political stance they wanted but you can hardly hold it against the Swedes who didn't have the advantage of being ringed in mountains.

i can tell you for an absolute fact that this is not accurate. a couple of weeks ago my cousin was hit by a hit-and-run driver in new orleans. the cops didnt bother to try to find the driver. the hospitals refused to treat him because he had no insurance. they actually released him, his dad had to drive down from tennessee to get him. the injury? his thigh was laid open almost to the bone from about 3 inches from his pelvis to about 2 inches from his knee

Yeah, a surplus on paper, but the debt kept rising. That's not a surplus.

He got close and there would have been a surplus within another year or two if his policies were continued, but it wasn't there yet.

And compare to where Bush left the country in 2009. If a democrat had been this good with the money like Bush was we would never hear the end of it how terrible democrats is with handling the economy but when a right winger does it oh it doesnt matter, Yeah it fen matters We are starting to see a trend Reagan was terrible on the deficit he runned it up like a drunk sailor runs up a tab in the bar and Bush and Bush did the same thing.

And folks that thought Romney doing the same things again would some how create a different outcome really until you change the law of gravity things will fall down when you drop them from a tower. And that is what would happen with Romney as well.

check those clinton years and you will see SURPLUS written on the last few of them You will if you also looked hard find that Obama is the most fiscal conservative president in the history of the country ( not a good thing since we could use more stimulus for sure to get out of the rut we are in from the GOP)

I'm not denying facts. You are.

Can you honestly look at Wikipedia, the CBO or the Treasury documents and tell me that gross federal debt dropped during the Clinton presidency?

At no point during the Clinton Presidency did the total debt of the United States go down. Clinton padded revenues with intragovernmental borrowings and returned the leftovers to the American people and called it a "surplus".

What about these facts are you not grasping?

---------- Post added 2012-11-17 at 10:21 PM ----------

Originally Posted by araine

And compare to where Bush left the country in 2009. If a democrat had been this good with the money like Bush was we would never hear the end of it how terrible democrats is with handling the economy but when a right winger does it oh it doesnt matter, Yeah it fen matters We are starting to see a trend Reagan was terrible on the deficit he runned it up like a drunk sailor runs up a tab in the bar and Bush and Bush did the same thing.

And folks that thought Romney doing the same things again would some how create a different outcome really until you change the law of gravity things will fall down when you drop them from a tower. And that is what would happen with Romney as well.

This isn't about Bush. You're claiming we "destroyed a surplus" yet I've shown several times that the "surplus" never existed. It was smoke and mirrors using intragovernmental borrowings.

Clinton inherited the dot-com boom. Bush inherited the bust.

I'm not saying Bush was a good president or that Clinton was a bad one, but let's be honest about these things.

---------- Post added 2012-11-17 at 10:23 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Wells

The Swiss benefit from some pretty unique geographical advantages that make them an unappealing target. Its great they were able to maintain the political stance they wanted but you can hardly hold it against the Swedes who didn't have the advantage of being ringed in mountains.

I'm not holding anything against the Swedes. I know full well that they were only doing what was best. I know the same thing every time I take a shot at Denmark for rolling over and taking it like Danes in WW2.

He insinuated Switzerland was built on stolen Jewish gold, though... come on.

---------- Post added 2012-11-17 at 10:25 PM ----------

Originally Posted by LeginNoslen

Nah dude they dug it up themselves, totally.

Well the huge majority of gold the Germans sold to Switzerland was raided from occupied countries' central banks.

Hundreds of millions of CHF worth of gold was from central banks. Only about 581,000 CHF had been determined to be from Holocaust victims.

This isn't about Bush. You're claiming we "destroyed a surplus" yet I've shown several times that the "surplus" never existed. It was smoke and mirrors using intragovernmental borrowings.

Clinton inherited the dot-com boom. Bush inherited the bust.

The Bush tax cut used the surplus to recover from the bubble burst of the Internet boom, that happened on Clinton's term. The Internet was not booming during Bush sr. for Clinton to inherit. The last 2 years of Clinton did generate a surplus, with the first being borrowed against Social Security. This was the interdepartmental shananagens you mentioned. But, the second was not, it was even argued by Bush that the tax cut was giving back the extra money government was taking.

---------- Post added 2012-11-17 at 10:47 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Masark

Yeah, a surplus on paper, but the debt kept rising. That's not a surplus.

He got close and there would have been a surplus within another year or two if his policies were continued, but it wasn't there yet.

If the last year of Clinton was only a surplus on paper, what justification did Bush give for a tax cut, without program cuts? When Bush handing out his tax cut as using the surplus to stimulate the economy, there was no argument about a Clinton surplus. It's only when Bushes policy resulted in an economic collapse, that the whole justification for Bush tax cuts gets forgotten.

The Bush tax cut used the surplus to recover from the bubble burst of the Internet boom, that happened on Clinton's term. The Internet was not booming during Bush sr. for Clinton to inherit. The last 2 years of Clinton did generate a surplus, with the first being borrowed against Social Security. This was the interdepartmental shananagens you mentioned. But, the second was not, it was even argued by Bush that the tax cut was giving back the extra money government was taking.

As you can see, the closest we came to an actual surplus was only borrowing $100 billion in '00. Yes, that's an extremely small and commendable deficit.

That doesn't make it a surplus.

What makes it a surplus, is the fact that a federal budget does not include the interest rate of existing debt. The budget was a surplus, but the spending was not, due to the the interest. Interest, that in your chart equaled to 15% of Clinton's whole budget. The fact that Clinton's budget surplus was not large enouph to cover interest, does not negate his surplus. It should have gone to pay for at least part of the interest, but a Bush tax cut nuked it.